When the leading Jersey City mayoral candidates met to debate at the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Journal Square this week, they bickered over crime stats, high taxes and waterfront development.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy and mayoral hopeful City Councilman Steve Fulop also differed on the Loew’s itself, with Healy saying the 84-year-old theater would not receive any more city funding and Fulop saying he sees the Loew’s as an investment that could help bring “Journal Square back.”

“I am not committing more taxpayers dollars to the Loew’s theater,” Healy said Tuesday afternoon at the tail end of the two-hour debate with Fulop. “We need another source of funding.”

The legendary theater opened in 1929, and was built for $2 million equivalent to about $27 million today. For decades it featured live entertainment and movie showings, but business slowly declined until the doors shut in 1986.

In 1993, the city agreed to purchase the theater, saving it from demolition, and the facility remains city property. Nonprofit Friends of the Loew’s (FOL) rents the space from the city for a nominal $1 annually.

The city spends about $100,000 on the property annually, not including forbearance of real-estate taxes, according to city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill. The city funneled about $100,000 in state funding to the theater for architectural purposes recently, and there are two county grants totaling about $700,000 for repairs that the city is managing, said Loew’s Director Colin Egan.

Egan said he was “surprised” to hear Healy’s comments at the debate. Egan noted that FOL and Jersey City spent years battling over the terms of a lease that was finalized in 2009.

“Friends of Loew’s is not looking to have disagreements with this administration or any administration,” he said. “I hope this doesn’t represent the beginning of a disagreement.”

The city’s decision not to provide any funding is “regrettable” but understandable, Egan said, considering the fragile economic recovery and city budgetary issues.

Fulop, the Downtown councilman seeking to unseat Healy in the May 14 mayoral race, said on Tuesday that he sees the Loew’s as comparable to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, something that could be a “cultural hub” for Journal Square.

“This is a city-owned building and it is an asset to the city and we need to recognize that,” he said, adding that an investment in the Loew’s would result in an economic jolt for the area.

Egan said the theater is in the midst of a roughly $400,000 stage-equipment upgrade that could be finished within a year and lead to more activity at the Loew’s.

Regarding Fulop’s comment about the theater becoming a “cultural hub,” Egan said, “We’ve been saying that since 1987.”